Bigger Than The Dept. Of Labor; Slightly Smaller Than NASA

Of course, we're talking about video game sales in 2006. Fine by me. The Department of Labor and NASA aren't nearly as much fun as Madden Football.

In all, hardware sales surged 43 percent to $4.6 billion in 2006 and software sales rose 6 percent to $6.5 billion. Sales of accessories jumped 19 percent to $1.5 billion for the year.
Total U.S. sales rose 28 percent to $3.7 billion during December, including a 59 percent jump in hardware sales to $1.6 billion and a more than 5 percent increase in software sales to $1.7 billion. Sales of accessories, which include controllers and memory cards for gaming systems, rose 47 percent to $451 million.